


Waiting's the hardest part.

by terrapatina



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Epistolary, Gen, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:34:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25784476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terrapatina/pseuds/terrapatina
Summary: Snippets of Claude's journal in those five long years.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth & Claude von Riegan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Waiting's the hardest part.

Teach,

It's been three Moons since you've disappeared and left me in the dust to solve all of Fódlan's problems.

Just kidding. Only a little bit.

Journaling is one of the few things that's highborn and noble about me. I write to keep the noggin steady, keep things tidy and organized in a world not-so tidy and organized.

It's gotten even messier without you. And here I thought when I met you, you were as messy as a person could be. Wild, mysterious, and powerful. 

I was envious. I am envious. I don't envy you right now.

* * *

  
  


Can you believe the Knights of Seiros only looked for you for a Moon with a skeleton crew and then left immediately to find their Archbishop? That's about what I expected from Catherine but not Shamir. 

Actually, I'm sure you’d expect it. You always do have such an uncanny ability in knowing the future. 

* * *

We all get spells of wanderlust. This is just a bit too long to be a joke, don't you think? 

* * *

  
  


Parchment is going to be rationed soon. It's not that we have a shortage–we fear what we write will end up in the wrong hands. The written word remains more sacred than talk.

It's not the limit in writing that pains me. It's what this all means underneath it all–I can barely trust my allies while I can wholly trust the Empire to scorch the earth for their goals while the Alliance are happy to be a bundle of ostriches with their heads buried deep underneath the ash.

... Oh, I never did tell you about those big birds in detail, did I? They really exist, even if the Academy insists otherwise.

Well, a man should be allowed to have his personal secrets. How about it, Teach? Come back before the end of the next Moon, and I'll tell you all about home.

I really am about to waste my last page on a bad barga

  
  


* * *

Funny what we consider useful and necessary after a crisis. I've been collecting all sorts of scraps just in case, but again… So many secrets. So little time.

* * *

  
  


Hey Teach, you're out there somewhere, aren't you?

Come back soon. 

I'll even set aside a hot meal just for you. None of that funny business with poisons. Gods, I was such a child.

* * *

One of my personal policies as a dignitary is to never put to ink something so miserably depressing and awful that it would simply curse a man to read it.

Brothers betraying brothers, fathers selling sons, friends killing friends... All sorts of horrors we've come to expect from reading about war, right? Surely, I'd get used it by now. 

Well. As you can tell... I've stuck to my policy. 

* * *

How did you do it, Professor? 

You were a mercenary, a sellsword so feared they called you the Ashen Demon. 

Yet, you never used your power for its own sake. It was always for work, family, and students–always for something above you. 

How could someone like you remain so incorrigible but powerful? 

Is this why the Church considers you a miracle of the Goddess? 

I'm not a believer. You know that. But even when I don't even believe in myself sometimes... I always believed in you. 

* * *

Ignatz tried to paint a portrait of you from memory once. 

He nailed the color of your hair. He called it something like the "underside of a sunlit lily pad." Don't tell him I told you this, but he might fancy you! 

He left the portrait with me before Raphael hauled him to a carriage back home.

The more I stared at it, the more I wondered if I was remembering you right at all.

Four years. That's enough for anyone to think twice. 

… Because really, a salmon trim? Our proud and Golden Professor? 

Maybe there was a reason I was smiling around you all the time, just barely stifling my laughs.

Those were the days.

* * *

The further I got into my grammar lectures, the more I thought it was strange to use the past tense for the deceased. Even if someone passed, did they actually leave this world? If my parents, servants, and friends speak their name do they truly die? True tragedy begins when you use a name like stale history, and then not at all.

But rules are rules, as Fódlan loves to enforce. I got used to it. 

I don't remember when I started using the past tense for you.

Hilda pointed it out one day. Gently, as if she were pointing out an undone button.

Teach. I hope you can forgive me for missing a few grammar points. Mark everything red and give it back to me one day. 

No, tomorrow. 

* * *

▓⁄█⁄∖∭▒ ⁗█‾█⁄⁄█≸█ ▓⁄Д█⁄▓ █ █⁄⁄⁄

⁄▒⁄██⁄≸⁄█⁄ ⁄▓ щ⁄▒█ ⁁⁄ █ℶ█⁄⁄█⁄ █

███⁄⁄▓⁄▓⁄≸ ▓⁄Д

█▒█ █▓▓██ ϰ █⁄⁄█≸

* * *

~~Perfidious Fódlan.~~

* * *

This is it. The Millennium Reunion.

I don't see anyone yet. It is rather early.

Here’s a bit of real honesty. I’m exhausted. I'm worried my hair will go as white as my wyvern, and you wouldn't recognize my ruined good looks.

But you’ve had a makeover once before, Teach, and it only made you stronger.

I hope I’m stronger. I wish I were. 

When all of this is over, I'll give you these letters.

Not as a testament to my good taste and judgment, as much as that's true. I thought I was doing it to keep you up to speed when I saw you again. 

But as I kept writing, I began to realize what this all really was. A collection of the great and mad ramblings of the most idiotic and hopeful fool in all of Fódlan–Claude von Riegan. 

I'll see you soon, Teach.

**Author's Note:**

> this was written a year ago and i only did basic edits so it's a bit 'raw.' clearing my wips so i'm posting now!


End file.
